This week I got to attend and sit on a panel at FinFair 2015 and it was really awesome. I learned some very cool stuff there that will help retail and individual accredited investors (meaning most of you reading this) and I thought I'd share a couple of these things.
The Current Market Needs democratization
Starting with organizer Dara Albright's opening keynote, there was a focus on Investment Banking and bankers. The most striking slide showed how much a recent IPO, Ali Baba, raised Click Here To Continue

This past week I got to go to Inside Bitcoins Chicago and had the fun of sitting on the panel titled "Bitcoin and the Small Business". I learned some terrific stuff there and wanted to share some tidbits with you.
Matthew Roszak of Tally Capital, in the opening keynote talked about how we have to do a better job articulating and executing some of the best use cases for Bitcoin like remittance, micro payments or banking the unbanked.
Here are some other running themes from the conference.
The Click Here To Continue

This last month saw some huge news from the p2plending/marketplace lending world. I thought I would outline some of those stories, their impact and my thoughts on them here.
Story 1: Goldman Sachs enters the business
The New York Times posted a story about the news that huge investment bank Goldman Sachs is getting into online consumer lending. Our friends Peter, Jason, Bo and Ryan at Lend Academy did a nice piece on the coverage as well.
Most banks, investment or commercial, choose to partner Click Here To Continue

Another month has come and gone and there have been some changes to my portfolio that I will go into more detail on further down.This is the monthly report for May where I outline my USD returns on Prosper and Lending Club and my BTC returns which have higher rates and higher defaults.
A reminder, I have 2 loan portfolios on Lending Club; a regular one using my Credit methodology and a High Rate/High Yield portfolio where I use some of my methodologies but actively seek out yield the same way Click Here To Continue

This past week, I had the pleasure to go to the 2nd Annual FinTech Global Expo (produced by Coastal Shows) in San Diego and sit on the Bitcoin panel entitled 'Beyond Bitcoin: The Block Chain Technology and its potential business applications'. It was great fun and there was an interesting focus on small business and real estate based lending platforms. There was some great new updated information there so I thought I'd share some of what I learned.
FinTech and Crowdfunding is truly Global
Due Click Here To Continue

I have been derelict in my monthly reporting but I'm back.
A couple new developments this month including:
New Portfolio
April saw the initiation of my Lending Club only High Rate/High Yield Portfolio. The purpose here is to use the same credit techniques I use in my regular portfolio to reduce risk but then seek the highest yields possible. This is to match the goal of many p2p lending investors who are high yield seekers.
Which type of p2p investor are you? Here is my post on this from Click Here To Continue

By now, most of you BitLendingClub lenders have gotten the email where BLC talks about adjustments made to their credit rating system and access to their Stats page.
The initiation of the credit rating system has been a big help in sorting through loans on the platform and is an attempt to be more proactive in reducing defaulters. Unlike Jam, whose rating system is based almost entirely on the amount of information they have collected on you as borrower, BLC is attempting to do actual credit analysis Click Here To Continue

Lending in Bitcoin is very different than lending your USD or GBP out for lots of reasons. One of the most obvious differences is the newness of the platforms themselves and how their recordkeeping, or lack thereof, affects us as investors.
I have 10 Rules that I use to lend my coin profitable and this is Rule #9: Keep Excellent Records.
Unlike Prosper and Lending Club, who have very good to excellent recordkeeping, you will get NO help with record keeping from any of these platforms. You have Click Here To Continue

The LendIt USA conference, commonly called LendIt 2015, is taking place in NYC closing today. If you couldn't go, here are some cool highlights from the conference
Partnership between On Deck and Prosper : the strategic referral relationship between the two firms, since On Deck does business loans and Prosper does consumer loans, continues and gets more formalized into more of a partnership with joint marketing and future business line long term strategy together.
Lending Club partners Click Here To Continue

This week marks the 2 year anniversary for this blog and my idea of presenting how a Commercial Credit professional would look at and analyze peer loans as an investment. It's been an amazing ride so far and more than 2000 of you follow me by subscribing and I couldn't thank you enough. I have learned some valuable lessons in these last 2 years and I thought I would share some of them to mark the occasion.
Massive Cooperation and Collaboration
I have worked across numerous areas of finance including Click Here To Continue